A Top's Eye VIew.
I hope this will be fun, funny, complicated, opinionated and occasionally irritating. Say what you will. Agree, disagree, complain, rant, rave. It's fine. If I say something that offends you, go somewhere else. If you agree with me or any of my musings, please share this with your lifestyle compatriots.

Monday, January 21, 2013

No More Checking In

The gentleman who taught me much about how to top, how to behave in the lifestyle and helped me discover my own play style taught me a lot about scene etiquette, too. He taught me to check in with the person I played with, following up the scene with an email or call the day after. At the very least it was polite. At the most it might reveal some psychological concern or physical after-effect it would be prudent to know about and to work through.

I have never met a woman I've played with who didn't appreciate a "Checking In" email.But, two days after another delightful night at the Lair over the weekend with Lizzie (and you can read all about it later this week on our joint side-by-side blog, Black & Blue), I realized something odd. I don't check in with her after a scene. Why? Because we live together. I "check in" with her constantly. We have pillow talk after the scene before falling asleep and in the morning the next day.Often, when my kids aren't around, we trade sly smiles or relive a little moment from the scene as we recall them. Lizzie is very cuddly the day after, wanting to "crawl into me" as she puts it. It's wonderful and certainly an aspect I never truly experienced until we were living together.But I don't send her those emails. Sometimes, as I write them, I relive the scene in my mind, thinking about various aspects of the scene and wanting to know how she felt about some particular part of it, discovering some aspect I couldn't see through mine own eyes. Of course, our blog does that in many ways, but it's not the same. Thinking about it, I'm not sure why I stopped. Just because we live together doesn't mean I still can't check in. In fact, I think I'm going to post this and go do that now...

She was so appreciative of the fact that I sent it (before she'd even read the above blog post) that she texted me to say how thoughtful it was. I think I am rethinking my "no more checking-in emails" policy...

I can only imagine how living together would add a level of intimacy... bypassing the need to check-in as life, after play, is a constant state of aftercare. To add to your point, I think checking-in is imperative for reasons other than just etiquette, though I do appreciate the gesture as such. While the dynamic between each Top/bottom, D/s, M/s etc. is different, my own experience is that I offer my entire self during each session...completely in the moment, never having more attention so focused on me. There is nothing that sends me into a sub drop quicker than a lack of a check-in. Going cold turkey after an intense session (aren't the all?) leaves me feeling abandoned and rejected even though logic, reason and history tells me otherwise.

I imagine as you were able to pick up on her cues since living together, the demand for such emails ceased... as checking-in became less literal, and more intuitive. That's just my guess... if you feel the need to check-in, perhaps a small vase filled with her favorite flowers would be just as effective ;)

I love that, SpankCake—"Life is a constant state of aftercare." I want that on her t-shirt.

I've had scenes that, for extenuating reasons, had either foreshortened aftercare or none. I know the bottoms in some of those situations have felt slighted and I know that I've felt horrible. With one scene, I just wasn't in the right headspace and just sort of cut it off as soon as the scene was done, leaving the bottom perplexed at best. I hate it when my head's not in the right place in a scene. Any time that's happened I always regret it.

I like it when my partner checks in. As SpankCake said above, sometimes it's less literal. If you're living together and see each other a lot, you may still be doing it but in different ways than before.

About Me

Motto: Conversio Virium (latin for "exchange of forces")
I am a MDHL (Male Dominant Het Leather) and am a proud member of the Monarchs. I am a Master and daddy to Lizzie.
I believe discipline, caring attention, focused instruction and mastery of myself and my sub are the first steps in a meaningful D/s relationship. I'm enjoy bondage, impact play, spanking, erotic humiliation, humiliation & debasing, and scenes mixing sex and delivery of pain. I feel true protocol comes from respect, trust, communication and understanding.
Because of my work and family I live the lifestyle 24/7 as best I can and am happy to have the balance I have.
I enjoy not just finding play partners but meeting new people, making new friends and appreciating the connections that come from that. The serendipity I discover in meeting great people in the scene has been a pleasant surprise.